Jul
28th
2017
Points of Canon: S1x20 - Green Isn’t Your Color · 12:49pm Jul 28th, 2017
Once more onto the beach.
- Lotus is using a clipboard, which don’t turn up often.
- Fluttershy is reading what has to be a beauty magazine while waiting for Rarity. Magazines are exceedingly rare on screen, this is nearly the only episode to feature them. The Ponyville library never, or almost never, contains any, unless they’re all rebound into volumes immediately.
- Fluttershy and Rarity have weekly get-togethers, and this is the first we hear of those. Seeing Lotus’ reaction to Rarity’s “the usual,” this had to have been going on for a while.
- Rarity has her own bathrobe with an “R” embroidered on it, she’s been a regular here since forever. It also happens to be a rare case of using readable Latin letters.
- The total list of beauty procedures involved is: A sauna, face masks of undetermined composition together with cucumbers we have previously seen in Look Before You Sleep, horn treatment for Rarity which involves filing the tip, massage, some kind of full body wrap, mud baths and a hoof soaking procedure. Notably, the intensity of procedures performed on Rarity is far higher than those that Fluttershy endures. Also notably, filing the horn would only be a cosmetic, rather than medical procedure, if it is safe to do and if the outer layer regrows.
- Something I just noticed: Lotus and Aloe have identical cutie marks. That’s got to be ridiculously rare in twins.
- Rarity never explains what Photo Finish has been doing in Ponyville in the first place, but she unambiguously met her right there in Ponyville (“on my way here”) and as far as we know, Photo Finish is not local.
- The location of the spa within town is still consistent – it’s in the town square.
- Rarity repeats the entire set of treatments almost immediately afterwards. I wonder how her coat isn’t bleached yet. I wonder if it actually isn’t.
- The outfit Fluttershy is modeling includes the barest hint of a decorative saddle element. This is actually the moment when they start vanishing – very few outfits in this episode include anything of the sort.
- This here is the first time Spike volunteers to be a pincushion. Notably, it’s Twilight who wonders whether that hurts, when she should be the one most aware of how thick his scales actually are.
- Twilight says, “My lips are sealed. Though I’m pretty sure Rarity is gonna pick up on your feelings.” Notably, in the next frame, Spike is wearing a t-shirt with Rarity over a heart depicted on it, which he wasn’t wearing a frame ago, and is not wearing in the frame right afterwards. I wonder if this is just a visual device or cartoon resolution and Spike has been wearing the shirt for the entire day.
- Notably, ponies don’t usually wear t-shirts in primary canon, though Luna’s shirt with rapidly changing slogans on it in My Little Pony #9 is quite prominent. As a side note, who made it for Spike? There probably isn’t a market in dragon-shaped baby-dragon-sized shirts in Ponyville, and the design is custom. Thermal transfer paper would be the way I would make one myself, and that involves more advanced chemical industry and a blank shirt.
- Photo Finish’s camera includes an obvious electric flash bulb.
- Photo Finish behaves rather strangely from the outset. She rejects every pose Rarity recommends to Fluttershy and instead praises poses where Fluttershy expresses vulnerability and sadness. This is later compounded by Photo Finish insisting to photograph Fluttershy in the nude and rejecting everything Rarity adds. In short, Photo Finish knew instantly what is it that she wants, and the clothes were irrelevant from the start – but there’s no way she would know that Rarity would ask Fluttershy to be her model, right? Certainly not from meeting Rarity randomly on the street and complimenting her on her hat. Feels like a missing piece.
- The rack Rarity brought to the park contains, at the very least, Twilight’s and Rainbow’s Gala dresses in their final form, requiring this episode to happen after Suited For Success.
- So why the hell is Doctor involved in carrying Photo Finish’s litter?…
- Photo Finish has no taste, because the outfit Rarity selected for Fluttershy is one of the cutest things Rarity ever made.
1. The other one would be Rainbow Dash saying “Gesundheit.”
Photo Finish says “wunderbar,” which is one of those rare German words that made it into pony lexicon in a mysterious manner.1
- It’s notable that when Rarity wanted to express how depressed she is, she had to sew a new cape, she didn’t have one ready.
- It’s rare for ponies to sport visible functional pockets, but two of Photo Finish’s stylists have them.
- Photo Finish says, “You’re only facing a large crowd of ponies who will be watching your every move and silently judging you.” And I bet she knows exactly what Fluttershy’s reaction will be and banks on it.
- Canterlot Friends are watching the show, or at least, Lemon Hearts and Twinkleshine are. Strangely, Minuette is present, but isn’t anywhere near them.
- Until the next shot, which contains four copies of Minuette and four copies of Twinkleshine. They keep turning up in most of the crowds in this episode.
- I think that is also the only time in the series Royal Ribbon speaks.
- The subsequent montage covers at least several weeks worth of time, judging by the amount of radically different outfits Fluttershy wears. In fact, with the way two periodicals with Fluttershy on the cover are shown, it has to be at least a month.
- Applejack is using Fluttershy pictures to advertise her apples. I wonder what sort of deal was involved.
- Rainbow is dragging around a banner with a carrot juice advertisement and I can’t help but wonder who paid her to do it and what – because otherwise, Rainbow shows signs of being one of the wealthier members of the Mane 6. Or is she doing this with the misguided intention to promote Fluttershy’s modeling career?
- This is the first appearance of the hard mount for photo cameras that ponies subsequently use rather often, which is a rare example of pony-adapted tool.
2. We’ve seen older photographs than that.
One of the cameraponies has a camera on the cutie mark, another has film, redundantly dating the introduction of photography.2 The third one has an inverted dollar sign on his mark.
- We don’t know much of anything about Berry Punch, but I wonder why exactly is Bon-Bon chasing Fluttershy. Or why is she saying that she has never heard of Rarity.
- “How could I have forgotten?! Your appearance at the ballet opening! Everypony who is anypony will be there.” Ponies have ballet, and I don’t think we have actually seen anything of it all the way until Season 5.
- Rarity says, “My hooves are getting positively pruney, I’ve been waiting here so long.” Notably, we’ve seen a much more extreme variant in Applejack’s Day Off, but even here the hoof is really pruney. Rarity confirmed for secretly being a marshmallow.
- This is the one time Rarity came to the spa dressed, since she leaves dressed.
- Twilight is capable of manipulating Fluttershy’s entire body telekinetically and ventriloquism.
- Fluttershy’s dressing room contains two birdhouses. Huh.
- …So why did Rarity shed her dress before hurrying to the said dressing room after the show?
- Rarity and Fluttershy Pinkie Promised to never keep their feelings secret again. The next instance when they’re caught doing that will establish the chronological limits on the efficacy of a Pinkie Promise.
- The fan Spike uses to fan Rarity is also custom and contains the same Rarity-over-heart design.
Among other things, this episode introduces the Pinkie Promise gag, which everyone is familiar with and which I won’t elaborate too much on. Not only Pinkie routinely screws with physics for the entire episode, nopony even calls her on it anymore.
Chronologically, this episode has to squeeze into a narrow hole: Rarity is less famous at the start than Fluttershy very rapidly gets. At the same time, Suited For Success, that gave the kickstart to her career, had to have completed already, since the finished forms of Gala dresses exist. Notably, in A Dog and Pony Show Sapphire Shores mentions the “Clothes Horse” magazine writing rave reviews, and the only incident that could conceivably lead to that in the timeframe available is Hoity Toity’s visit. This permits this episode to exist in the gap between that visit and the time the next issue of the magazine came out. In our world, monthly glossy magazines are typically sent off to the printers at least two weeks before their official release date, with all the articles finalized, which makes this gap at least two weeks and at most six weeks wide.
Now, as for analysis… Photo Finish is fishy and seems to be using information that isn’t actually available. What’s missing?
Obviously Photo Finish learned how to stalk ponies in her first career as a paparazzo.
I could definitely see Twilight having a strong dislike of most periodicals. Something like Scientific Equestrian might pass muster. Of course, that assumes she has sufficient autonomy to make such sweeping policy choices for the library.
Given how we just had an episode that opened with Rarity's growing reputation, Photo being in town to see the up-and-coming designer isn't outside the realm of possibility. Alternately, Spike might have used the same contacts that helped him bring in Hoity Toity.
Only if she's been doing things to or around him that would bring scale thickness into question. Hopefully she's a bit more careful than that.
The missing piece might be that Photo Finish is one of those rare ponies who actually knows who the vanquishers of Nightmare Moon are, saw Fluttershy, and devised a strategy to get to her. Improbable, but feasible.
And then there's the matter of her voice...
That aside, I wonder what agent-grade monsters Fluttershy has befriended over the years.
The relationship between cutie mark and technology is definitely an interesting one. When does an inventor get one, and what does it look like?
4615775
Notice that most of the books in the library would have to predate her tenure.
That is actually somewhat less improbable than you would think, if we do assume that Photo Finish started her career as a paparazzi. She would have retained contacts in newspaper business in this case, and well, no matter how the vanquishers of Nightmare Moon became protected information, these would be the people who knew.
Notice also that Photo Finish wears cutie mark concealing dresses at all times… I went to look up her cutie mark and here’s what I found:
vignette2.wikia.nocookie.net/mlp/images/3/38/Photo_Finish%27s_cutie_mark_S1E20.png/revision/latest?cb=20130124073855
Huh.
Depends, I’d wager. A serious groundbreaking technology is typically invented when the inventor is in their 20s and takes 10-20 years to develop into its groundbreaking state. So for most inventors, their mark wouldn’t usually have anything to do with the invention that eventually makes them famous. However, if somepony stumbles on an idea in the moment of cutie mark epiphany that later gives rise to a groundbreaking technology, it’s possible to have a cutie mark of an item of technology that is still far from market applications.
4615806
Cutie mark theories to follow:
1) Twilight Sparkle Bootstrap Paradox,
2) Paint-on cutie marks were, pre Starlight Glimmer, a risque fashion statement in certain upper circles,
3) At the time of that image, Photo Finish had just recently escaped from a professional theatre performance she got roped into sitcom-style and hasn't had time to wash it off,
4) a forgotten third Sparkle child, as both Shining Armor and Twilight Sparkle have the purple star as part of their mark. Speaking of which, I can kind of see a fun shenanigans fic about how the entire Sparkle family's thing is making sudden appearances with no previous evidence of their existence.
4615872
Certainly sounds like this or a variation on this would make the coolest story.
Sounds quite unlikely. Photo Finish would not be wearing a dress that makes it so incredibly difficult to see if that were the case.
Pretty ridiculous and doesn’t sound very fun, if you ask me.
She would have to be somewhere between Shining Armor and Twilight in age for this to happen, I don’t see how exactly could a middle Sparkle child go missing. Unless we assume a highly racist universe where Twilight Velvet and Night Light gave up the newborn earth pony for adoption the moment she was born.
There’s a related interesting tree of options that grows from anypony having a cutie mark identical to Twilight.
Assume that the Tree of Harmony is a public offer contract: One who comes bearing the cutie mark of that star shall be offered the Element of Magic and shall, should he or she accept it, have various adventures, culminating in the chance to achieve apotheosis.
In that case, multiple ponies can accept this contract, and Photo Finish also could, but didn’t, and there’s an alternative world where she, rather than Twilight, ended up there at the time when this was possible.
4615806
My understanding is that Twilight was the first pony flash model ever made. Almost all the Season 1 ponies were made by modifying her model. Sometimes when a cutie mark wasn't thought to be visible the animators would just leave it at Twilight's default rather then paste in a new one on the model. They thought Photo Finishes dress would cover it in every shot but it turns out "oops," it didn't.
Now you could look for a Watsonian explanation for the animation error but that's a pretty deep rabbit hole to go down. After all that leads to trying to explain all the background alicorns, the clone army, the occasional cyclops pony etc.
Honestly, I think Photo Finish changed her mind on the fly and pretended that was her plan all along. She was sincerely planning to do a photoshoot to show off Rarity’s designs, but the instant she laid eyes on Fluttershy, she realized yellowquiet had the potential to be much, much more famous than fashionhorse. Not to mention, as Fluttershy was a complete newcomer to the fashion industry, she’d be much more dependent on whoever introduced her—a perfect lump of clay for Photo to go Svengallop on.
(Rarity would be less ideal for Photo’s purposes—anypony with enough independence and drive to get a hoof into the industry by herself, would also have enough backbone to make manipulation harder. Actually, come to think of it, maybe Photo did initially plan on pulling something similar with Rarity. She agreed to the shoot because she assumed that a designer from a small town like Ponyville would be a rube she could effortlessly wrap around her hoof.)
So at the boutique shoot, Photo Finish took the preliminary steps to develop Fluttershy as a model—while minimizing Rarity’s input but pretending the shoot was still about her dresses, just in case Flutters didn’t work out. Photo got the pictures developed that day, looked them over to confirm that the camera did, indeed, love Fluttershy; maybe she even consulted with her photography peers. Then, convinced Flutters was going to work, she kicked Rarity to the curb at the next possible opportunity.
Man... she got nastier and more manipulative than I initially intended.
Twilight Sparkle has a cutie mark for magic. Photo Finish has a cutie mark for Ze Magicks!
Although the MLP wiki lists that as an animation error. What I’ve heard is the artists started with Twilight’s model in flash and just edited that to make Photo Finish. They just didn’t bother to change the CM because they assumed her dress would hide the mark from all angles. For what it’s worth, this the brushable toy Photo Finish’s CM.
Of course, the fandom is inconsistent as hell about deriving canon from animation errors.
4615900
Sure, it is an animation error. But Derpy was also an animation error, and it’s also a story opportunity. :) A cyclops pony does not make a particularly fun story, except maybe horror.
Someone who has the same mark as Twilight, though…
4615905
Frankly, there’s no way to make her not-nasty if you accept any interpretation like that. The mark animation error is interesting additionally because it offers opportunities to produce a non-nasty interpretation.
I’m not entirely sure it’s worth it, but that’s certainly something to consider.
So is canon, because Derpy.
I dunno. Photo Finish's whole shtick is photography-related, I think it's just supposed to be a potassium-based flash powder burst, we just can't see the flashpan on the front side of the mark.
4615900
4615905
Well, you know what, it’s not just an animation error.
1.bp.blogspot.com/-VgiZ9ylSZpo/VSwB26XUdWI/AAAAAAAAUkA/YDvrW1YKiDw/s1600/24-b-1.jpg
It’s been reused verbatim later.
Source.
4615972
Whoa...
A part of me doesn't want there to deliberately be ponies with the same cutie mark, because signatures, but your idea of the Tree of Harmony's 'mark of the star' vague chosen one prophecy would make a fun wacky story.
Bootstrap Paradox Twilight is still best Photo Finish, though.
That reminds me, did anything ever happen to that one fic where supposedly Rainbow Dash is Photo Finish?
4616065
I don’t think I’ve ever seen that one.
4616094
https://www.fimfiction.net/story/329816/photo-dash
Don't know if it's any good, just know it's a thing.
4615872 4615891 Alternate interpretation: Photo Finish is Twilight's sister. She left the house in a huff before or shortly after Twilight was born, insisting that she wanted to get started on her career. Shining Armor doesn't want to delve up painful memories. Twilight doesn't talk much about her, both because of that and because, well, we've seen she doesn't talk much about her family - and when the sisters eventually meet in Ponyville, it's awkward enough neither of them really knows what to say.
Okay, not all that likely, but maybe works for a fic?
OTOH, I really like the "Mark of the Star" prophecy, and want to read a fic where Photo Finish is bearing the Element of Ze Magik!
4616117
It makes for some neat drama, though it requires Photo Finish to be Shining Armor’s age. I think she looks younger.
On the other hand, with the way she dresses, it’s really difficult to get a decent gauge on her apparent age, and cartoon resolution eats the difference…
Though there’s that question… Just what is the chance of two sisters getting an identical mark? Lotus and Aloe have identical marks, but they also apparently got it at the same time, while Photo Finish and Twilight probably did not…
…or maybe they did? Multitudes of ponies saw the Rainboom, after all…
This gave me a chance to think about Bon Bon, and perhaps resolve one of the most difficult aspects of her: We know from flashbacks that she spent time in Ponyville as a kid, presumably under her true name of Sweetie Drops, since I doubt she was a SMILE agent at 10. So how can she live undercover as an adult with a different name in the same small town with other ponies who knew her true identity as a foal?
I think "Bon Bon" started as a cover for missions. Sweetie Drops claimed to be Bon Bon, a weirdly identical cousin to Sweetie Drops, visiting the town on various pretexts while waiting for night to fall so Sweetie Drops could sneak into the Everfree and to capture particularly dangerous monsters. She changed her voice to help with the disguise, and even got SMILE's local CI Kevin to appear as her once or twice. Then when SMILE was dissolved "Sweetie Drops" simply disappeared and Bon Bon got to retire in her home town, a privilege most ex-spies don't get.
Why did I bring this up here? I think Sweetie Drops was on a mission tracking another changling who was stalking Fluttershy by pretending to be a fashion photographer, and posing as a fan of Fluttershy in the process. This is the first time "Bon Bon" has come to Ponyville, so of course she doesn't know who Rarity is.
4615806 A cutie mark for an inventor might be in the same general family as the eventual invention. Like the inventor of the TV wouldn't have a TV cutie mark, but they might have a vacuum tube cutie mark. And/or depending on how much say destiny gets, maybe cutie marks are of the invention because they can predict the future. "I was just thinking of cool gizmos when this doohicky appeared on my flank! .....I wonder if I could build something like it in real life?"
4616117
4615872 Before retconned by later seasons, it was a common fan theory that Photo Finish was Limestone in disguise, just like Octavia was Marble in disguise, back when they were known as Inkie and Blinky Pie.